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A charming valentine to women born with a space between their teeth, ranging from lighthearted whimsy to a deeper look at issues like self-esteem and societal attitudes toward standards of beauty. Interviews were conducted with over one hundred women, including model Lauren Hutton and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.Read More »
An examination of the life of actor and singer Paul Robeson, from his first major triumphs on the stage in the 1920s through his gradually increasing social activism in the 1930s and 1940s, leading to his controversial performances in Eastern Europe in the 1940s in which he performed communist anthems and criticized American social conditions.Read More »
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It’s just a typical day in the lives of the employees, customers, and passersby of a Los Angeles car wash. There’s a would-be robbery…an assembly line of the weirdest, baddest, shadiest characters you’ve ever met, and lots of ’70s music to pass the hours till quitting time. Featuring outrageously hilarious performances by George Carlin, Professor Irwin Corey, the Pointer Sisters, and Richard Pryor as Daddy Rich–a flamboyant reverend who preaches the goodness of the dollar–Car Wash is a timeless classic celebrating an era devoted to living life in the fast lane.Read More »
Russ Raymond, America’s number one crooner, disappears and joins the Navy under the name Tommy Halstead. Dorothy Roberts, a magazine journalist, is intent on finding out what happened to Russ and she tries everything she can to get a picture of him to prove he’s Russ Raymond. Tommy’s friends, Pomeroy Watson and Smokey Adams,help him while Pomeroy writes love letters to Patty Andrews. But because Smokey makes Pomeroy lie about himself in the letters, and when Patty comes to the Navy base, she’s furious at Pomeroy. When Pomeroy, Smokey, Tommy and the Andrews sisters set sail for Hawaii, Pomeroy discovers there’s a tomato in the potato locker, and she’s been snapping shots of Tommy the whole trip. Whether Pomeroy’s proving that 7 x 13 = 28 – three different ways, having Smokey help him play ship captain for Patty, or falling out of his hammock, it’s an Abbott and Costello classic.Read More »
A private detective is hired to retrieve a valuable antique coin that was stolen from its owner by her son, who used it to pay off a blackmailer. The private eye soon finds himself up to his ears in fights, more blackmail, hysterical women and murder.Read More »
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As Another Girl, Another Planet’s hapless protagonist Bill (Barry Sherman) thinks back on relationships with girlfriends past, the Pixelvision might be read as the haziness of his memory drifting away from romantic love. As the characters break out into poetic litanies about pain and desire (“I wasn’t used to being happy. It was somehow exhausting,”) music becomes the tool to express their feelings. As one relationship crumbles apart, Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s ferocious “The Mercy Seat” drives hard through the scene as Bill fiddles with lit matches. During a tender kiss between boy and girl, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” opines in the background.Read More »
Austrian Film Museum writes:
Bewitchedis an audaciously stylized psychodrama that marked the keenly anticipated directorial debut of Arch Oboler, a brilliant enfant terrible of radio drama whose popular horror series Lights Out and scandalous Adam and Eve parody – with none other than Charlie McCarthy and Mae West in the biblical roles -earned him regular comparison with Orson Welles. Obolian accepted the inevitable invitation to Hollywood where he worked successfully as a screenwriter before directing this striking adaptation of his own celebrated radio play Alter Ego. Bewitched.Read More »
Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Though Jack Benny made a cottage industry out of joking about the purported rottenness of his 1945 vehicle Horn Blows at Midnght, the film is in fact a delightful comedy-fantasy-certainly not Benny’s best film, but far from his worst. While dozing off during a radio broadcast, studio musician Athaniel (Benny) dreams he’s a trumpet player in Heaven’s celestial orchestra. At the behest of glamorous angel Elizabeth (Alexis Smith), Athaniel is brought into the lavish chambers of The Chief (Guy Kibbee), who has a job for our hapless hero. Read More »
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Two employees of a secluded hotel investigate a murder on the premises in which the goofy bellboy is the prime suspect.Read More »